"When You Are Old" by W.B. Yeats

Found this poem while perusing Waterstones.
Rushed home to find it. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Another Dead Hero Podcast parts 1, 2 and 3

These are linked to the direct files so should be working better than the last lot.
ADH's Radio show whittled down to a 45 min podcast with all their songs included.
ENJOY

PART 1




PART 2




PART 3

Buried...and why I wish cinema audiences were

By James Cox

"Buried"

As far as Jungian, collective fears are concerned, being buried alive is a banker.
It is a perfect mix of innately terrifying elements: darkness, claustrophobia, restriction, isolation.
The act of burial, of course, is so deeply rooted in our social consciousness as being the final stanza of a funeral that the fear is positively theological. You are being buried, descending to hell, beneath a ton of earth where no one will hear your last breath.
In "Buried" director Rodrigo Cortés, shows us, with a vivid lack of mercy, just how horrific an experience that lonely hell would be.
Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) wakes up in a wooden coffin beneath Iraqi soil.
He is a contract truck driver whose convoy was ambushed by put-upon insurgents hell bent on teaching the West a lesson.
The main selling point of this film is the narrative decision not to leave the coffin, at all.
It is the ultimate single-location, situation concept.
The specially designed "set" allows Cortés the ability to make frenetic use of his limited space.
I would applaud the tight composition that heightens the claustrophobia and tethers you to Conroy as his temperament waivers between calm acceptance to frenzied panic, but it's difficult to see how you could fail to apply a cramped feel when you've opted to shoot an entire 94 minute movie in a box.
And it's in this decision that it really earns it's stripes for commitment to a premise.
It pips "Phone booth", which despite it's limitations still allows itself a ten minute, free roaming prologue around New York before settling into the call box.
It even outdoes Hitchcock's masterful "Rope", which never leaves the studio apartment in which it's based, but which feels positively brimming with activity considering its half dozen party guests and city-view balcony.
For an hour an a half Reynolds lays in a box, and we lay with him.
The miracle here is that it never gets dull.
As the air supply gets low and the gentle trickle of top soil begins to fill the coffin, I found myself captivated by the stark helplessness of the situation.
And just as in Reynold's core dilemma, time becomes irrelevant when you're buried underground.
Much has been made of his performance and he deserves the plaudits.
Fast carving himself a respectable body of work, Ryan Reynolds is a sympathetic and charming every man, comfortable in his role as the narrative fulcrum.
He even manages a little of the Van Wilder cheekiness to break the unbearable tension with a few, close to comedic phone retorts.
Unfortunately the film isn't a complete success.
Strangely, it is only when the script tries to inject narrative urgency, peripheral to the immediate threat of suffocation, that it falls flat.
Paul has a mobile phone, and it is through this that the details of his imprisonment are revealed.
The phone brings a lot of bonus points to the production with the ever decreasing battery life and fading signal, it is a tool of annoyance that ratchets up the tension at crucial moments.
But it also relegates the supporting cast to voice acts, and here it fails miserably.
Quickly we are introduced to a game of cultural stereotypes as we purvey a myriad of global accents each a little over eager to paint us a picture.
It is detrimental to the political message, that appears to have been shoe horned into the background, that the Middle Eastern antagonist sounds like an Aladdin henchman.
There is a bizarrely misjudged critique on American bureaucracy that has Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day (incidentally a strong voice actor with a poor role) delivering an indictement of red-tape America which verges on embarrassing.
That the film manages to break free of it's sodden confines and deliver any succinct plot is a triumph.
But ultimately the film is at its best when forcing us to face the terror of the central premise.
Everything else is window dressing for an impressive Hitchcockian set piece.
Reynolds may just have earned his "serious" credentials and if Cortés can be this captivating in a box, imagine what he can achieve above ground.

ADDITIONAL:
"Buried" relies on a very personal empathy to create the lonely, claustrophobic atmosphere that heightens this conceptual nightmare.
It is purposefully restricted to a 3 x 6 ft wooden box, and although director Cortés manages to milk every twist and turn out of that narrow crate, and deliver impressive light trickery, it is not a picture with mainstream appeal on it's mind.
It's not that this film is intellectually or culturally challenging. It's a suspense thriller and Panic Room sold well enough, right? But it will test the patience of "pop-corn" audiences who demand thrills, spills, and (almost forgivably) more than one character.
Having said this, "Buried" for all it's positives, was one of the most trying cinema experiences of my life. And I do not refer to the purpose built claustrophobia.
Instead a young audience who failed to connect to the subject matter, and thus failed to commit to a challenging premise, got restless and chatty.
They became uncomfortable with the unusual cinematic cues, because they haven't learnt how to react to five minutes of darkness at the movies before.
This is not a critique of them as people, it's a challenge to the entire cinema system, to change it's policy to protect movie experience for seasoned film fans who view going to the pictures as more than a recreational pass-time, but as (arguably sadly) a genuine interest. An interest in the way I suppose book fans enjoy reading groups, or art fans peruse a gallery.
That this experience must be shared by a populist cross section of the general public who are intolerant of challenging cinema and have formed the opinon that it is socially acceptable to fraternise mid-movie is not just a mild irritant to me, but the central thesis of my next blog post!
Let the ranting commence...

TV show cast negative light over criminal scheme

A TV programme that criticised a community jobs scheme for convicts has been described as “fear-mongering” by a councillor using the initiative.
The ITV1 Tonight programme, screened on Thursday, said the Community Payback scheme was too easy on criminals.
It showed secretly filmed participants smoking cannabis, relaxing in the sunshine and complaining of little work.
Martyn Donn, Ramsey and Parkeston councillor and qualified Payback chaperone, is a major supporter of the initiative and was left angered by the negative programme.
“I had eight offenders over the Welfare Park on Wednesday, working like Trojans,” he said.
“Some of them don’t like it, but recognise that it’s a punishment. I never ask what they’ve done or why they were arrested, but a couple have actually told me that because of the scheme they will not offend again.
“I was annoyed at the program and the way they kept calling them criminals. Most of them have committed nothing more than motoring offences. People go on about jails being over crowded and they are giving back to the community.
“They have done some very important work in and around our area. Levelling the ground and clearing brambles.
“This tv programme was clearly just fear-mongering made to sell. It creates animosity towards the offender and puts people off using the scheme.
“It’s already worried about potential financial cut backs and this will not help its cause.”
Louise Casey, one of the architects of the scheme, turned objector, said: “Some of those people have committed serious offences, including violent offences, yet they're on a kind of a version of a holiday camp.
“I mean, it's a bit of a joke really. The punishment as it is at the moment isn't punishment.”

Writers note: The actual work I have seen conducted through this scheme has been incredibly beneficial to the community. Specifically in cases where small parish councils struggle to raise funds to satisfy public demands.
The Payback Scheme offers a cheap alternative to drawn out, expensive, district contracts and everyone involved has given the work glowing reviews.
Interestingly there have been no submitted reports of violence, or even dissidence, among the participants, with testimonials from the offenders themselves that the scheme was a personally rewarding experience.
On watching the ITV documentary on Thursday I felt compelled to write something as I thought it was lazy, biased and genuinely damaging journalism that threw a good scheme to the right-wing wolves.
If only I had a bigger platform than the Harwich and Manningtree Standard and a blog read by six people.

Braintree poppy fields - 12th July 2010

W.B.YEATS "Her Anxiety"

I have to confess I had never read anything by the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats until this week, but I'm glad I came across him.
He reminds me of Arthur Rimbaud - but much more pessimistic.
I'm quite ignorant when it comes to poetry (and I think most people are, although claim not to be - but that's a post for another, more vitriolic time).

Amongst his collection I found this 1929 poem.

Her Anxiety

Earth in beauty dressed
Awaits returning spring.
All true love must die,
Alter at the best
Into some lesser thing.
Prove that I lie.

Such body lovers have,
Such exacting breath,
That they touch or sigh.
Every touch they give,
Love is nearer death.
Prove that I lie.

William Butler Yeats

Daisy Roxwell & The Humdingers

Saw a fantastic gig at the Boars Head in Braintree last night.
The band were called Daisy Roxwell & The Humdingers, a funky little three piece, playing original songs at their first ever show.

I know drummer Kat from her days playing with Paul Gronland (singer from my old band Pulse) in popular college band Oliver's Remains.
What I didn't know was she is an amazing vocalist as well as a drummer.

Look our for the name: Daisy Roxwell & The Humdingers.